Bodies for Battle: Systematic Training in the U.S. Army’s Physical Culture, 1885-1958 By © 2018 Garrett Gatzemeyer M.A., University of Kansas, 2016 B.S., United States Military Academy, 2007 Submitted to the graduate degree program in History and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Chair: Adrian Lewis Jennifer Weber Beth Bailey Sheyda Jahanbani Don Haider-Markel Date Defended: 07 December 2018 ii The dissertation committee for Garrett Gatzemeyer certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Bodies for Battle: Systematic Training in the U.S. Army’s Physical Culture, 1885-1958 Chair: Adrian Lewis Date Approved: 07 December 2018 iii Abstract This study investigates the creation and evolution of an official U.S. Army physical culture between 1885 and 1958 built around systematic physical training. Facing “empty battlefields” wrought by new and improved weapons technology in the late nineteenth century, a few young officers advocated systematic physical training as a means of improving the Army’s manpower to meet the mounting physical and mental demands of combat. These advocates, most notably West Point’s Herman Koehler, drew on contemporary popular fitness culture and the professionalizing field of physical education to craft a new culture and associated system of exercise that has informed approaches to physical training in the U.S. Army ever since. Using archival sources, published training manuals, and professional journals serving military officers and physical educators, this study illuminates that original culture’s system of values, beliefs, and assumptions, then traces its change over time to 1958. This study finds that change primarily resulted from the influence of empowered institutional outsiders who applied cutting-edge physical education knowledge and expertise to orient the Army’s physical culture evermore on producing measurable physiological outcomes, especially after 1942. However, impulses driven by scientific rationalism existed alongside and interacted with relatively stable core values and beliefs, such as man’s central role in battle despite technological change, the Army’s role as a man-building agency, and definite connections between physical exercise, moral fiber, and mental strength. The Army’s physical culture also consistently existed at a nexus between intersecting concerns that influenced its development and motivated its deployment outside the Army into civilian society. Significant intersections included anxieties about American masculinity and fitness in an era of industrial war that demanded the deep mobilization of populations, and the changing relationship between man and machine in war. Beyond providing iv a rich description of the U.S. Army’s physical culture and training system as it evolved over the first half of the twentieth century, this study pioneers the investigation of martial physical culture as a profitable and as-yet understudied avenue for historical research. v Acknowledgments My Department Head at the U.S. Military Academy is fond of saying that a dissertation is a family project, especially if written while serving on the Academy’s faculty. My experience has borne out this insight. Out of necessity, research and writing has been shoehorned into late nights, lunch breaks, weekends, and family vacations for nearly three years. Many people sacrificed their time, shared their talents, and lent encouragement during these odds hours and over the long haul. Without this family support I would never have finished this manuscript. Appropriately, I get to meditate on that support during Thanksgiving weekend as I pull together the final draft of this dissertation. Some of my “extended family” on this project may not even know that their names are going into print, but their contributions were vital nonetheless. For instance, several librarians and archivists helped me access obscure documents vital to my research and offered insights from their own areas of expertise. I think especially of Benjamin Gross of the Linda Hall Library, Mary Brutzloff of the Eisenhower Presidential Library, and Alicia Mauldin and Mark Danley of the USMA Special Collections and Library respectively. Three more of these collaborators went above and beyond the call of duty. Bethany Davis and David McCartney of the University of Iowa libraries graciously packaged and sent digitized copies of the Charles McCloy papers, saving me thousands of dollars and several days of leave. Similarly, Rebekka Bernotat of the Donovan Research Library sought out physical training conference reports from Fort Benning that I only suspected existed, located more reports that I did not know existed, and digitized the whole lot for me. A small corps of readers and commentators at USMA formed a circle of more immediate family for me over the past three years. Cliff Rogers and Sam Watson, both brilliant historians vi with whom I have had the great honor to work, read and commented on multiple drafts of the chapters in this project. Everything from my writing style and grammar to my argumentation and contextualization of physical training has benefitted from their insights, and I have personally found their friendship and mentorship to be invaluable. Members of my department’s informal junior faculty dissertation working group have also earned my gratitude. I thank especially Ben Brands, Jim Villanueva, Mark Askew, John Fahey, and Brendan Griswold for their feedback and support and for sharing their projects with me. I would also be remiss if I did not thank my boss, Colonel Bryan Gibby, whose encouragement and advice were vital. I doubt that I would have been able to sustain the hard work this project demanded had I not belonged to the culture of respect, excellence, and care he has cultivated in our division. Nearing the inner-most circle of family, I thank also my committee members at the University of Kansas: Adrian Lewis, Jennifer Weber, Sheyda Jahanbani, and Beth Bailey. All are inspirations to me in the historian’s craft. Professor Lewis asked hard questions and kept me on track, always encouraging me to press forward. Professor Weber challenged me to be a better writer and more critical thinker. I have benefitted professionally from her mentorship as both an officer and historian. Professor Jahanbani offered her wisdom in the very earliest stages of this project as I struggled through my first graduate school writing seminar, probably without even realizing it. Finally, Professor Bailey’s insightful feedback, curiosity, and her expertise in exploring the interactions between the U.S. military and American society helped me take this dissertation to a new level. I am also deeply grateful to Professor Bailey for her positivity and encouragement of community among the graduate students in KU’s history department. This final paragraph is reserved for those to whom I am most indebted—family members who made deep sacrifices to grow this project from the germ of an idea to a completed vii dissertation. My father, Steve Gatzemeyer, listened to me when I was at a low-point and on the verge of folding. He encouraged me to pick myself up and drive on. He has also always provided a model of dependability and character that I find inspirational. Amy Gatzemeyer, my incredible wife, deserves an entire book to detail all of her contributions instead of these few sentences. She believed in my work from the beginning and never flagged in her support. She sacrificed time together, accepted the periods I was mentally or physically distant as a husband and father during the writing process, and actively sought ways to keep me energized, positive, rested, and encouraged. She patiently listened to me develop my ideas and contributed her own insights that have shaped my thoughts and arguments throughout the pages that follow. Finally, she also read every draft, which is a remarkable accomplishment. I look forward to returning Amy’s loving support as she pursues her own development as a yoga teacher. And last, but not least, I thank my beautiful children: Quenby Anne and Theodore Rex. They did not always understand why I had to seclude myself here or there to write, or why we had to go on family vacations to the archives, but they were always ready with a hug or word of encouragement to keep my spirits up. Like Amy, they sacrificed our time together to bring this dissertation to completion. It is to them that I dedicate this manuscript and this lesson I learned while writing—nearly anything is possible given planning, determination, dedication, and the support of those whom you love. viii Table of Contents Introduction: Modern War, Modern Fitness ................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Bodies and Battlefields: Contextualizing Martial Fitness for Modern War ............... 24 Chapter 2: Origins of a U.S. Army Physical Culture, 1885-1916 ................................................ 56 Chapter 3: The U.S. Army’s Battle of the Systems, 1914-1920 ................................................. 102 Chapter 4: Reversion, Disaggregation, and “Prehabilitation,” 1919-1940 ................................. 147 Chapter 5: Physical Cultures for Total War, 1936-1946 ............................................................ 190 Chapter 6: Hard Bodies for a Cold War: Conditioning and Prehabilitation, 1945-1958 ............ 243 Conclusion: Fashioning that “Certain Strength